| Scrapple is a cornmeal pudding in which the cornmeal, perhaps with the
addition of buckwheat, is simmered with pork scraps and trimmings, then cooled and hardened into a loaf.
Composition
Scrapple is one of those farm foods invented to use those parts of slaughtered food animals which were not suitable to be
served on their own, in the same manner as sausages, or Jewish kishkes. Scrapple typically contains the meaty parts
of hog heads, hearts, some liver, and other scraps. The proportion and spicing is very much a matter of the region, family, and
the cook's taste.
Commercial scrapple will often contain these traditional ingredients, with a distinctive flavor to each brand, though homemade
recipes often specify more genteel ingredients, and consequently a blander taste.
Preparation
It is typically cut into thin slices, fried until the outsides form a crust, and eaten at breakfast in a similar manner to
bacon or sausage. It may be eaten as is, or
served with maple syrup, apple butter, ketchup, mustard, and/or butter.
Regional Popularity
Scrapple is particularly associated with Philadelphia but is popular in eastern Pennsylvania, and elsewhere in the southern portion of the Mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. Scrapple is readily available in supermarkets in the New York City suburbs, but is usually sold frozen to extend sales life.
Among other places, scrapple is manufactured in southern Delaware. Bridgeville, Delaware hosts an annual "Apple-Scrapple
Festival". Scrapple is reported to have originated in Germany.
Cincinnati and the surrounding southwestern Ohio/Northern Kentucky area have a regional version
known as "goetta". According to the 1975 edition of The Joy Of Cooking, the only difference between scrapple and goetta is the cereal components, corn
meal and steel cut oats respectively. Cincinnati hosts an annual goetta festival.
In Appalachia, scrapple is known as pon hoss.
Similar dish
Scrapple is somewhat similar to the Scottish traditional dish haggis, though the latter is prepared with mutton
offal instead of pork, and oatmeal instead of cornmeal.
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